MYSQL LIKE but not equal - php

Question

I have got database with this structure
Id Country Interests
12 Azerbaijan Acting,Reading
14 Azerbaijan Reading,Writing
16 Azerbaijan Acting,sleeping
And this PHP/MYSQL
$Interests = "Acting,Reading";
$Country = "Azerbaijan";
$query = "SELECT * FROM user_opt WHERE Country='$country' AND Interests='$Interests' ";
$i = substr_count($Interests,',');
for($j = 0; $j <= $i; $j++) {
$a = explode(',', $Interests);
$query2 = "SELECT * FROM user_opt WHERE Country='$country' AND Interests LIKE '%{$a[$j]}%'";
}
So with this code it returns me this ids
12
12
16
12
14
But i want it to return
12
16
14

Answer 1

You probably want to use OR to find all of your interests. To do that, build up your OR statement first, then insert it into the query. NOTE: This is not a secure/preferred way of doing this! Make sure you're using PDO or mysqli and bind your parameters!
$interestArr = [];
foreach($Interests as $Interest) {
$interestArr[] = "Interests LIKE '%{$Interest}%'";
}
$query2 = "SELECT * FROM user_opt WHERE Country='$country' AND (".implode(' OR ',$interestArr).")";

Answer 2

you can avoid the loop using a regexp
SELECT distinct *
FROM user_opt
WHERE Country='$country' AND Interests REGEXP 'Acting|Reading';

Answer 3

I did it using
!=
Like this
$query2=$con->query("SELECT * FROM user_opt WHERE Country='$country' AND Interests!='$Interests' AND Interests LIKE '%{$a[$j]}%'") or die($con->error);

Answer 4

you don't need to loop the result, just using OR comparator
$Interests = "Acting,Reading";
$Country = "Azerbaijan";
$query = "SELECT * FROM user_opt WHERE Country='$country' AND ("
$a = explode(",", $Interests);
$interestQuery = "";
for($j = 0; $j < count($a); $j++) {
if($j+1 == count($a))
$interestQuery = $interestQuery . "Interests LIKE '%". $a[$j] ."%') "
else
$interestQuery = $interestQuery . "Interests LIKE '%". $a[$j] ."%' OR"
}
$query = $query.$interestQuery;
$echo $query;